The million-dollar question.
“Meghan. Gabe,” Beckham said with a head nod.
“Is this some kind of joke?” Gabe asked.
“It would not be a very funny one.”
“It’s really him,” Reyna told them.
“I’ll explain inside,” Beckham said. He faced the four who were following him. “Philippé, do a perimeter sweep. Katarina, check the defenses. Return to me when you’re finished. Gerard, Zoya, you’re on me.”
Then he strode into the mansion as if he owned the place, with Reyna at his side. The entire exchange left Reyna even more confused. More questions sprung up. She ached to ask them all, but at the same time she felt at peace. She demanded a miracle. And she received one.
The entourage assembled in the dining room. Gabe rushed to get Tye and Jodie, while Meghan found Washington speaking to a young woman in the kitchen. Their looks of shock at him appearing out of nowhere perfectly mirrored Reyna’s.
“Roger,” Beckham said, extending his hand to Washington.
“Beckham,” Washington replied with awe.
“And the lovely Genevieve,” Beckham said. His attention turned to the vampire woman Washington had brought from thekitchen. She was only about five feet tall and looked not a day over twenty. She wore her straw-blonde hair parted down the middle and in a braided bun at the base of her neck.
“Mr. Anderson,” she said demurely. “It’s a pleasure to have you back in residence.”
“You know each other?” Reyna asked in confusion.
“Yes,” Beckham answered.
“Genevieve has been a close associate of ours for a long time,” Washington said.
“Indeed,” Beckham agreed. “I’m certain everyone here wants to know how I am not dead.”
The room went silent except for the scraping of chairs as everyone sat.
“William tried to kill me, but he managed to fracture my neck that day. Essential ligaments and veins were still attached, and he rendered me unconscious. I healed because I fed before going to the New Year’s Eve party and was informed when I awoke that Reyna had given me her own blood as well.”
That made sense in its own way. Vampires were difficult to kill on a good day. Guns only slowed them down. Sunlight when they were feeding the wrong blood type could also incapacitate them but did little when they were drinking from the blood cure. Decapitation was the easiest way, but severing the spinal cord was known to work as well. Starvation was the hardest and most gruesome.
Reyna had been sure that Harrington snapping Beckham’s neck had done the trick. It had been horrifying to witness and just as bad to live through.
“Reyna is your blood match. It would make perfect sense that her blood would help you heal,” Washington said.
Beckham’s head whipped toward Reyna. He clearly already knew that term, but she had never had the chance to tell him that fateful night. “Is this true?”
She nodded, her heart expanding at the intensity in his gaze.
“I’m gathering a blood match is something special?” Jodie asked from the other side of the table.
“A perfect pairing of the blood composition. Beyond blood type itself but down to its very foundation. A one-to-one match,” Washington explained.
The room fell silent again as they stared at Beckham and Reyna. As they saw how unique they were to be in one place. To have discovered each other.
“Well, that explains much,” Beckham concluded.
“It could explain everything,” Washington said.
Beckham nodded. “I remember nothing after William attacked me until I woke up in a morgue. I was in a metal container, on the docket to be incinerated that afternoon. I escaped the confines of the metal tube and found a blubbering Penelope. She had been watching over me. Mourning, I suppose, in her own way.”
Reyna cursed.
